Participation, Individual Development, and Organizational Change: A Review and Synthesis

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Abstract
The purpose of this review is to identify and explore issues associated with the use of participation in conjunction with Organization Development activities. We maintain that the misunderstanding of participative processes places significant limitations on the success of Organization Development interventions and upon acceptance of the field as a whole. To remedy this situation, we suggest that practitioners pay more attention to combining individual and organization development efforts and that researchers devote more energy to exploring the effects of mediating variables on participation outcomes. We recommend the concept of organizational citizenship as a more inclusive frameworkfor research and practice concerning participation in organization development activities. "Progress for democracy lies in enhancing the actual freedom, initiative and spontaneity of the individual, not only in certain private and spiritual matters, but above all in the activity fundamental to every man's existence, his work." Eric Fromm, 1941. "If there were a nation of gods, it would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is unsuited to men." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 176211967.

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